Blues Brothers 2000, a comedy with rhythm and blues, is director John Landis' sequel to his 1980 hit, The Blues Brothers. Reprising his signature role as Elwood Blues, the maverick musician with a briefcase full of soul, is Dan Aykroyd, with John Goodman, (ABC's Roseanne), Joe Morton (Speed, Terminator 2: Judgement Day) and J. Evan Bonifant (Three Ninjas Kick Back) heading the cast. The screenplay for Blues Brothers 2000 was written by Aykroyd and Landis, with Landis, Aykroyd and Leslie Belzberg serving as producers and Grace Gilroy as associate producer.
Blues Brothers 2000 picks up 18 years after the brothers' original "mission from God" left off, with Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) getting out of prison and discovering that much has changed in the time he's been away. His partner, Jake, is dead, his band is long gone and the orphanage where he grew up has been demolished. Even Curtis, the orphanage custodian who was the surrogate father to Jake and Elwood has passed on, making Elwood's only living relation Curtis' bastard son Cabel (Joe Morton)--his almost-step-brother. Cabel, a straight-as-an-arrow, by-the-book cop, doesn't exactly acknowledge any family ties; he's convinced that Elwood's still up to no good.
Seeking guidance from his former teacher, Sister Mary Stigmata, Elwood finds her working as a hospital administrator with a problem of her own; she's at the end of her rope with Buster (J. Evan Bonifant), a 10-year-old orphan seriously in need of a "mentor." Acknowledging that "God works in mysterious ways," Elwood soon realizes that he's embarked on a whole new mission--to reassemble the old band, compete at Queen Mousette's Battle of the Band in Louisiana and set the wayward Buster on the path to redemption. With Elwood, that path leads them right to a strip joint where they hook up with bartender Mighty Mack McTeer (John Goodman), who knows a thing or two about the blues, himself. The three then hit the road in order to reunite the band, trying their best to stay ahead of Cabel and the cops, as well as the Chicago Chapter of the Moscow Mafia and a rabidly right-wing militia group.
Blues Brothers 2000 features return engagements from many cast members of the original film. Reprising their roles are James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Steve Lawrence, Frank Oz, Kathleen Freeman, Jeff Morris and the original Blues Brothers Band: Steve "The Colonel" Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Murphy Dunne, Willie "Too Big" Hall, Tom "Bones" Malone, Lou "Blue Lou" Marini, Matt "Guitar" Murphy, and Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin. Also appearing in the film are B.B. King, Paul Shaffer, Erykah Badu, Nia Peeples, Wilson Pickett, Jonny Lang, Eddie Floyd, Sam Moore, Taj Mahal, Blues Traveler, Darrell Hammond, Shann Johnson, Junior Wells and Lonnie Brooks as well as many other surprise performances.
Now trademarkable icons, Jake and Elwood Blues, a.k.a. The Blues Brothers, were first created by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in the early 1970's in Toronto, Canada. Born from a mutual passion for music--Aykroyd for the blues and Belushi for rock and roll--the act was initially performed at New York's Lone Star Cafe with Willie Nelson and Room Full of Blues as the back-up band before being integrated into the 1977-78 Saturday Night Live season. As the duo's popularity grew, their endeavor grew musically serious and they enlisted a core of top-flight musicians to help them with their mission to bring rhythm and blues back into the mainstream on the American consciousness.
In 1978, The Blues Brothers released their first album Briefcase Full of Blues. Recorded live at the Universal Amphitheater, the album, with the hit single "Soul Man," , hit #1 on the national charts and the album quickly started its climb to what has now become triple platinum status. The following year, Aykroyd and Belushi began filming The Blues Brothers with director and co-writer John Landis at the helm. Released in 1980, the film instantly became a huge box office success, grossing over $80 million domestically and propelling The Blues Brothers to the forefront of pop culture and putting rhythm and blues back on the pop charts. The mission was successful.
John Belushi's untimely death in 1982 stalled the mission, but the movie's cult status throughout the world has kept his and Aykroyd's passion for rhythm and blues alive. Now, with Blues Brothers 2000, the story and the music continues.
"I always thought there was another story to be told, but when John died everything just kind of stopped," explains Aykroyd. "As time went by and I began to play with the band again at the House of Blues openings and went through a few changes in my own life, as well, I came to the point where I felt I could finally sit down and write the next chapter in Elwood's life."
Blues Brothers 2000, explains Aykroyd, is about Elwood's search for a family and his resulting redemption. "Elwood's pretty depressed when he gets out of prison and realized that a lot of the people he loved in the past are gone from his life, so he has to find some reason to go on, a reason to continue living," explains Aykroyd. "Certain omens provided by providence and the love of his old friends help him get his life back together. And along the way, he discovers a sense of family. It's a real American odyssey in the most classic sense."
For director John Landis, bringing The Blues Brothers back to the big screen presented a rare opportunity to explore the events that play out in people's lives over an extended period of time.
"Blues Brothers 2000 is a sequel in the truest sense of the word and I find that really exciting," comments Landis. "Not only does it pick up 18 years after the old ones left off and genuinely continues the story of Elwood Blues, but I think it's one of the few pictures in history to actually have most of the original cast members--Aretha Franklin, Kathleen Freeman, Frank Oz, Steve Lawrence, the Band, James Brown--return to play the same characters. And they're literally 18 years older."
"I think this movie has a lot more heart than the first one that it's made by middle-aged people as opposed to kids," laughs the director. "We all have families now and a slightly different take on things than we did when we were making the first film."
It was apparent from the beginning that a new partner would have to be found for Elwood. Explains Landis, "The Blues Brothers were a comedy team, like Abbott and Costello or Laurel and Hardy, and with Jake gone, Elwood needed a new partner."
For the pivotal role of Elwood's new partner, Aykroyd and Landis created the character of Mack, a singing bartender whom Elwood enlists as a Blues Brother following a fiery altercation with the Chicago chapter of the Moscow Mafia. To play his new associate, Aykroyd recruited John Goodman, a self-professed rhythm and blues buff and long-time fan of The Blues Brothers, whom everyone agreed was a natural to play the role.
"I had great respect for John's work as an actor," recalls Aykroyd, "and knew that he could sing and dance. It really felt like a good match."
The project appealed to Goodman on a number of levels, not the least of which was the opportunity to perform with the musical icons of his childhood.
"When I found out they were in the planning stages of making a new Blues Brothers film, I called Dan and said I'd do anything--beg, steal or borrow--to be in the film," says Goodman. "So he took me along to sing with him at House of Blues one night and that seemed to work out pretty good, so they just kinda let me tag along with them. The next thing I know, I'm loitering with intent in front of a microphone with the likes of Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn and working with Aretha Franklin and James Brown. This really is showbiz heaven!"
Joe Morton plays the role of Cabel Chamberlain, a straight-as-an-arrow, by-the-book Illinois cop who also happens to Elwood's only living relation.
We're so incredibly lucky to have Joe in this movie," says producer Leslie Belzberg. "Since The Blues Brothers are a musical group, it's important that your actors be able to sing and dance. Joe Morton was a perfect choice because in addition to being a talented actor, he has done a lot of Broadway musicals, has a fantastic voice and is a terrific dancer. So he was a natural for this role."
According to Morton, "becoming a Blues Brother is a dream come true. I love to sing and dance so I jumped at the opportunity to work on a film like this where the music is so good and everyone's having such a good time. I mean, I couldn't believe it when I found myself on stage singing 'John the Revelator' with James Brown and Sam Moore."
With Blues Brothers 2000, the filmmakers decided to take the mission from the first film, which as to bring rhythm and blues back into the mainstream of American consciousness, a step further by handing the torch to a new generation. "Having a kid in the movie made a lot of sense since the underlying theme throughout the film is about Elwood building a family unit," says Aykroyd. J. Evan Bonifant, who plays Buster, the 10-year-old orphan Elwood find himself mentoring in the movie, is proof positive that Blues Brothers come in all shapes and sizes. Not yet born when the first movie was made, Bonifant was nevertheless a huge fan of the Blues Brothers, having made their acquaintance on video. Although his favorite scenes from the first film were the car chases, it didn't take the young actor long to get hooked on the music he heard on the set of Blues Brothers 2000. "If they would have given me a quiz on blues music history at my audition, I probably would have failed it," smiles the young actor. "But I think I've learned a fair amount now; I've had some pretty good teachers. And you know, I really like this music; it's way better than heavy metal."
The Blues Brothers have long been associated with some of the greatest American music ever written, a tradition which continues in Blues Brothers 2000. "The first movie really ignited a contemporary understanding of rhythm and blues," explains Belzberg, "and I think the expectation of the audience is that it continue in Blues Brothers 2000. We're not going to let them down. There's even more music in this movie than there was in the last one."
"We've assembled a fantastic group of performers," enthusis Landis. "Well-known, traditional rhythm and blues artists such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Wilson Pickett, Eddie Floyd, Junior Wells, Lonnie Brooks, Taj Mahal, Sam Moore and new and upcoming artists such as Jonny Lang, Erykah Badu and Blues Traveler. It's a really amazing group of players."
Aretha Franklin, who reprises her role from the first film, went into the studio to make a brand new recording of "Respect." First recorded in 1967, "Respect" quickly became the anthem for an entire generation and remains a classic today. Says Franklin, "I told John (Landis) and Paul (Shaffer) that if we couldn't do as good or better than we did thirty years ago, we should just leave it alone. Well, I think we did it better. It has all the magic of the old classic version but with a contemporary spin. And this time, boasts the Queen of Souls, "I got to play piano."
James Brown, who once again appears as the Right Reverend Cleophus James, preaches the key sermon responsible for Cabel Chamberlain's revelation and joins Sam Moore in the gospel classic "John the Revelator." Wilson Pickett and Eddie Floyd united with Jonny Lang to sing "634-5789," the hit single which was written for Pickett in the 1960s by Floyd and Steve Cropper. Blues Traveler perform a new song written for the film entitled "Maybe I'm Wrong" and Junior Wells--probably the greatest harp player in the history of the blues--and guitarist Lonnie Brooks teamed together to play "Checkin' On My Baby," Aykroyd and Goodman got their opportunity to strut their musical stuff on the classics "It's Cheaper to Keep Her" and "Lookin' For a Fox."
The enormous demands of the film added many more hours to the already long days of production. While five of the numbers were filmed live, in order for the actors to have music to work with when they filmed their scenes, the majority of the music had to be pre-recorded in the studio either at the end of the shooting day or on the weekend.
Music supervisor Paul Shaffer, who orchestrated the pre-record sessions explains, "The mandate of The Blues Brothers has always been to perform these classics in the spirit in which they were meant to be performed; sometimes they add a little of their own humor, but basically they stay true to the intent of the originals. The joy about re-recording these songs is that with today's technology, you can hear exactly what was going on then, only with today's sound. Of course, it helps that we had the classic people--the Godfather and the Queen of Soul: James Brown and Aretha Franklin; Wilson Pickett, one of the greatest R&B voices of all time; and Jonny Lang, one of the strongest R&B voices of the comtemporary era."
The filming of Blues Brothers 2000 was also a significant event for Shaffer in that, twenty years earlier, he had hand-picked the original Blues Brothers Band with Belushi and Aykroyd. "I don't think that anyone at the time thought that the Blues Brothers would endure the way they have. We knew we were picking the ultimate rhythm and blues band, but never in our wildest dreams did we guess that the band would still be together twenty years later." Shaffer continues, "I had to pull out of the first movie at the last second and always felt bad about it. So, to be here, all these years later, doing what I was supposed to be doing the first time is pretty neat."
The thrill of being reunited for a second movie was evident among members of The Blues Brothers Band as well. "It's incredible," joked Murphy Dunne, "to think that only took eighteen years of prayer on my part and just three sets of calluses on my knees, to finally get this magnificent production together." Trumpet player Alan "Mr. Fabulous" Rubin likened the experience to being in summer camp. "This has been the greatest summer of my life," exclaims Rubin. "From the crew to the cast, the vibe on this set is just amazing! I feel like I'm in the best day camp ever."
As with any great reunion, there were memories to be shared and stories to be told. A lot of those stories centered around the memory of John Belushi. "John was such a fantastic guy to work with," recalls Cropper. "He was funny and giving and really cared about his friends. He was just a super guy."
Commiserates Aykroyd, "Every time I walk through the door of the studio, I think of how great it would be if John were here with us and how much he would enjoy what we're doing. I miss him, but I know he's here in spirit."
One of the biggest highlights for everyone involved with the production had to be the monumental Queen Mousette's Battle of the Bands between The Blues Brothers and the Louisiana Gator Boys, a supergroup formed especially for the occasion. With twenty-one of the world's musical superstars, representing musical styles ranging from rhythm and blues to jazz to rock and roll to country and western, everyone agreed that this was a signal event which would go down in the annals of music history.
Marvels Landis, "It's wonderful when you think about who we had up on that stage: B.B. King, Bo Diddley, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Dr. John, Jeff Baxter, Isaac Hayes, Travis Tritt, Lou Rawles, KokoTaylor, Billy Preston. It was like staging our own dream concert."
Led by B.B. King, the Louisiana Gator Boys held the cast, crew and audience extras spellbound as they launched into a raucous rendition of "How Blue Can You Get." The energy that came from the stage was a powerful force that struck everyone and by the time The Blues Brothers joined the band on stage to play Gary U.S. Bond's hit "New Orleans" in a jam session to end all jam sessions, there wasn't a body in the room that wasn't rocking right along. As with most musicals and "this is a musical" emphasizes Landis, the element of dance figures prominently in Blues Brothers 2000. The film's 14 musical numbers incorporate a blend of theatrical Broadway styles and Busby Berkley and burlesque-type numbers with traditional concert staging. "People break into song and dance a lot in this film," smiles Landis, "it's definitely more ambitious than the first one in terms of actual musical numbers and choreographed dance routines."
Choreographer Barry Lather was responsible for putting the actors through their paces and although Goodman describes himself as a "choreographer's nightmare," Lather says that teaching The Blues Brothers their moves was really not all that difficult. "The Blues Brothers definitely have their own rhythm," states Lather, "they have their own vibe and their own kind of flavor and that's what's unique about them. As the choreographer, my job is not just teaching these guys steps, but also making sure that they feel comfortable and confident when they do their number. So I incorporated moves that they already knew and then taught them a few steps that I thought were cool and that they'd feel comfortable and look great doing."
The tradition of spectacular stunts adn elaborately staged multi-car chases and crashes is also continued in Blues Brothers 2000. From their breathtaking entrance in a flaming car dropped from a height of 80 feet at their "comeback" gig, to causing the largest car pile-up ever filmed, The Blues Brothers, once again, unwittingly leave a trail of chaos in their wake. "There is some really necessary evasive driving on the part of Elwood to get away from various forces that are chasing him," says Aykroyd with a smile.
The vehicle Elwood uses to elude the assorted factions of cops, gangsters and bad guys pursuing him is a 1990 Crown Victoria known as "The Bluesmobile." The former police car, fitted with a 400 hp NASCAR stock engine and a "nitro" button capable of boosting its speed to 700 hp to accommodate stunts and assorted automotive mayhem, is acknowldged by all to be a magical vehicle. Among other things, The Bluesmobile can fly, park anywhere it wants and drive underwater.
Stunt coordinator Rick Avery, who previously worked with Landis on Beverly Hills Cop III and Innocent Blood, relished the opportunity to join forces with Landis on Blues Brothers 2000. "I've known John for eight years and he's done it all--every stunt there is to do. And since he understands our profession so well and repects what he do, he's a stuntman's dream to work for." Although Avery enjoyed staging the sensational car crashes, coordinating the high falls and precision driving as well as engineering the escapes from various explosive situations, the real draw for the seasoned stuntman was the opportunity to stage the biggest car crash in a single scene in film history.
The rapid-fire crash--which appears on the screen for less than two minutes--took Avery four months to plan and the filmmakers three days to shoot using a multi-camera set-up. Utilizing the skills of someof teh top drivers in the stunt industry--Jack Gill, Bob Minor, Eddie Braun, Buck McDancer and Joni Avery, to name just a few, Avery and his team rolled, jumped and crashed 60 cars in different directions, at varying heights and speeds, into a tar spreader,a dump truck, a trailer and each other. "It's as if we took all the cars that were crashed in the first movie and crashed them together in this one at one time," says Avery. "I think that this is a stunt that people will talk about for years to come."
Cameras rolled on Blues Brothers 2000 on June 3, 1997 and continued through early September. Although the story begins in Chicago, the action in the film spans five states--Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi and Louisiana. And, the filmmakers wanted to ensure that the places The Blues Brothers traveled, evoked the feeling of driving from Illinois to Louisiana--an interesting task for production designer Bill Brodie and his art department, since the majority on the film was shot on location in and around Toronto.
"Things don't change all that much when you cross a border: cornfields and roadside diners in Kentucky look pretty much like roadside diners in Ontario," explains Brodie. "Besides, as our director likes to remind people, Casablanca was shot in Burbank."
Matching topography became more difficult for the art department once The Blues Brothers traveled to the more southern states; it seems tropical plants, Spanish moss and kudzu vines aren't exactly abundant in Ontario. A little ingenuity goes a long way and with the delivery of five tons authentic Spanish moss from Florida, Brodie and his crew had one of the most important elements necessary to transform a former park on the outskirts of Toronto into the lush grounds of Queen Mousette's Louisiana plantation. While the greensmen were dressing the grounds with the harvested moss, kudzu vines fashioned from silk and chickenwire and skeletons of previous visitors, Brodie and art director Dan Yahi were busy overseeing the construction of the facade of Queen Mousette's mansion, a magnificent antebellum structure which exuded all the ambiance of the plantation mansions found in the old South.
Modeled on a drawing found in an old history book, construction of the 100- by 50-foot facade took workers almost six weeks to finish. Once the structure was in place, the painters and set decorators took over, painting and plastering the mansion's surface with a finish that, despite its decrepit and weather-worn look, reflected that opulence and splendor of what it must have looked like in its heyday. Gas lit torches, creeping vines and even live alligators were added to enhance the look and feel of mystery. The interior of the mansion, built on a Toronto soundstage, relfected quite a different look. Vibrant and colorful, the inside of Queen Mousette's, which was fashioned partly after House of Blues, captured all the magic and spirit of Mardi Gras. With walls covered with Afrocentric art and larger-than-life masks and sculptures of Albert Einstein, "Satchmo" and a giant gorilla, the festive dwelling was the perfect location to stage the Battle of the Bands.
"Queen Mousette is a 130-year-old voodoo queen," explains Brodie, "so John and Dan were quite anxious that her house reflect the mystery and magic befitting her character."
Other sets built or created for the film included the interior, exterior and burned-out aftermath of Willie's Stripster Club, Malvern Gasperon's junkyard and the tent site of Reverend Cleophus' revival meeting. Elwood's release from prison was filmed at the Millhaven and Bath Correctional Institutions located outside Kingston, Ontario, where, despite the communication ban, which prevented the crew and inmates from speaking to one another, the inmates made their sentiments known when they dropped a white sheet with the words "Blues Brothers Rule" from one of the windows.
An empty fairground in Markham, Ontario, located about half an hour north of Toronto, stood in for the Cynthiana, Kentucky Fairgrounds which served as the site of The Blues Brothers "comeback" gig. Two-thousand extras were recruited through newspaper and radio contests to take part in the filming of the scene where The Blues Brothers belt out a chilling rendition of "Ghost Riders in the Sky." The enthusiasm of the crowd did not have to be faked; in addition to being entertained by Aykroyd and Goodman and seeing The Blues Brothers Band perform live, they had the dubious honor of witnessing movie magic firsthand when the special effects team created the enormous wind and rainstorms necessary for the scene.
The magnificent architecture and skyline of Chicago would have been impossible for the production team to match anywhere but the "windy city" itself, so as filming was winding to an end in Toronto, a second unit was gearing up. Landis and the second unit spent a week in Chicago shooting drive-by and establishing shots of such landmarks as the Wrigley building, the Sears Tower, the El Trains and platforms and the stunning skyline of the city at night. While in Chicago, Landis also took the opportunity to revisit the southside location of what had been Ray's Music Exchange in the first movie. While there, the unit filmed a drive-by in front of a mural painted for the original film which, all these years later, still exists on a wall outside the 47th Street Pawnshop.
The costumes for the Blues Brothers 2000 were designed by Academy Award-nominated designer Deborah Nadoolman who also designed the costumes for the first movie.
"Ask any of the guys what the most attractive thing about being a Blues Brother is and, without hesitation, they'll answer 'the clothes,'" laughs Nadoolman.
"She's absolutely right," agrees Morton. "I mean, who else gets to wear this beautiful black suit, these wonderful black glasses, these very dapper black hats?"
The omnipresent black suits and hat worn by The Blues Brothers were originally derived from jazz album covers of the 1950s, specifically an album cover which featured John Lee Hooker wearing a similar outfit. In creating The Blues Brothers, Aykroyd and Belushi added the (Ray Ban) sunglasses later. This getup was intended to make musicians--even the Blues Brothers--look like businessmen and thus avoid the attention of the law.
Over the years, the suits have become the identifiable trademark of The Blues Brothers, worn by fans and spawning imitators the world over. "I think it's a pretty accessible costume," relates Aykroyd. "A porkpie hat, a pair of shades, white shirt, black tie and old black suit, it's a pretty easy purchase. We see a lot of it at Halloween and we see a lot of it at sporting events. No matter how soulful you are, or how musical you aren't, when you put on the wardrobe, you put on an attitude."
In order to accommodate the demands of the movie, including the stunts and musical numbers, Nadoolman made ten subtly different versions of the suit for each of the actors in the film.
The outfits worn by Franklin and her girlfriends are Nadoolman's homage to the great House of Chanel. "I wanted everyone to look attractive, but I also wanted it to be fun and witty at the same time," explains Nadoolman. "So I thought it would be fun to do a play on French designers, specifically Coco Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld. So you'll see the double "C" earrings, the buttons, even the cap-toed shoes. But we took everything--the colors, the accessories, the entire look--just slightly over the top. The ladies loved their outifts."
Erykah Badu's beautiful gowns were inspired by Nadoolman's memories of her childhood visits to Haiti. "When I was about 15, we visited the Citadel, which was built by Henri Christoff," explains the designer. "After he threw out the French, Christoff crowned himself Emporer of Haiti and had his 'court,' who were all obviously Haitian, dress like the French court."
Drawing on this memory and the huge impression it had on her as a young woman, Nadoolman thought it would be visually interesting to dress the Queen as an Afrocentric Marie Antionette. The multi-layered gowns were constructed from brightly-colored fabrics printed with African designs. The bone and bugle-beaded bodices were painstakingly crafted by hand and took weeks to construct. The elaborate wig worn by Badu took five people two weeks to construct. Fashioned once again after the style favored by Marie Antionette, the wig was made with real hair and featured dreadlocks instead of curls. Shaffer, who plays Queen Mousette's major-domo, Marco, was also dressed in 18th century costume. The costumes for Queen Mousette's dancing guards were inspired by Haiti's Tonton Macoutes.
Nadoolman also drew on the African motif for the fabric in the robes worn by Brown, Moore and the choir.
Cinematographer David Herrington helped give the production its overall look. Dale Beldin served as editor
The original soundtrack for the film will be released by Universal Records.